Response to Sterling's Media Critique

          On his blog, Sterling wrote a media critique that I thought was well done. He was complimentary rather than critical of the article and its journalist at times, but the points made when he was being critical were very well made. His article was about the boy, Ahmed, who was arrested because everyone thought that his homemade clock was a bomb. Sterling said that while the story was newsworthy, this specific take on it didn't include all of the sides of the story. This is a very good point. I've seen more than one article on this topic and few include any quotes or information from Ahmed himself about his take on the situation. This type of journalism violates the fairness yardstick, and it's something that should definitely be corrected and avoided in the future. Sterling's media critique can be found here.

Movies vs. Television- class response

          When we talked about movies in class, my mind immediately went to a movie that I once saw. I'm sure some people have seen it. It was one of the American Girl movies, Molly. The movie is set during World War II. The reason that I was reminded of this movie is that there's a scene where Molly and one of her friends go to a movie theater after school. The scene is shot from in front and a little bit above the girls as they're watching, and it really does a great job of capturing the immersive experience. The girls' faces are fully illuminated by the screen and they have expressions of awe. It did a great job of showing this thing about movie theaters that television will never really be able to do. The huge screen, the sound coming from both sides, and the darkened room are all features that set theaters apart. 

          In the same movie, right after the girls leave the theater, they go to an ice cream parlor. There are a few things about this scene that stand out as well. One is that the place is absolutely packed to the brim when they get there. Another is that they know the server by name and he know their exact orders. Lastly, it stood out to me that the girls did not simply go home. All of these aspects of the movie scene portrayed how the growth in the popularity of television made us more lazy, and less social. Everyone in the ice cream parlor was there with friends because there wasn't really much else to do. Back then, you did things with your friends outside of the house, because anything else was boring. Television has changed us in that we are willing to sit at home for hours watching shows and programs that barely interest us. This trait was not at all present in the characters of the movie that I've been using as an example.

Class response- Television

          When you watch old movies and TV shows set in the past, you notice that everyone is dressed so nicely at almost all times. They're always going out, they hang out at drug store food counters and ice cream parlors. They seem to annunciation more clearly and use a better vocabulary. Nowadays, this is certainly not the case, and television is a big part of the reason why. In class, we learned that TV made us all more lazy, which would explain why the social part of the description of the past is true. It was also said that TV was instrumental in trend setting. This explains the change in wardrobe and speech. That being said, the piece that really got my attention, was the bit about how TV alters our sense of reality. Because while this means that it changed our ideas about what was and wasn't acceptable in society, it also means that this look at the last that we have might not be accurate. The scenes that I described at the beginning of this paragraph really glorify life in the early and mid 1900's. But, I think it's interesting, albeit slightly confusing, to think about the fact that if TV alters our sense of reality, those times might not have actually been quite as glamorous as they seem on the screen.

Class response- censorship

          During our class discussions about movies and TV, we talked about censorship. When movies were a new thing, censorship was at its toughest. Things that couldnt be shown included sex, drugs, and violence, but the thing that interested me were all the loopholes. Mr. Miller told us about how they would show everything they could that was implicative of sex, drugs, or violence, without actually showing it. My mind immediately went to the old movie "Little Shop of Horrors." In that movie, there is an abusive relationship. However, any time any violence is shown, it is shown through windows with the curtains drawn so that you can only see silhouettes of what's happening. There is also an ax murder near the end of the movie, but the only thing they ever show is the shadow of the ax. I had always thought that these features were just outdated, cheesy techniques used in old movies as a way to add drama or suspense. It never occurred to me that there was any legal reason behind these choices. I found it very interesting to finally learn where all of these old practices in film came from.

Media critique- WAVE

          When I was looking over the headlines in the news logs, I noticed something interesting between WAVE's stories. On the log for October seventh, their online headline read "Another summer-like day." Now, that alone is clearly unnewsworthy, but it happened again. On the log for October nineteenth, their online headline read, "Another frosty night." These stories are very similar, and very unimportant. Newsworthiness is outlined in both the yardsticks and the elements, and these stories violate it. Weather stories are very rarely newsworthy because the weather is constantly changing, so it is difficult for something relating to weather to affect a lot of people for a lot of time. Mr. Miller even told us to ignore the weather block of the news shows and the weather section of the newspaper. It's not a priority to tell people that the temperature was low when it just rose again in the morning. It's also not important to tell everyone that there was a warm day, because now it's cold again. No one was affected for any time by these two events.

         WAVE has also had other headlines that weren't newsworthy such as "Man Shot and Killed Identified" and "Two Semis Slam Into Overpass." Accidents like this are tragic, the families are certainly affected, but no one more than the victims and their families are influenced. They are not worth reporting on. If anything, I think that it's disrespectful to deny the victims and their families privacy. 

Media Critique- WDRB

          I was thumbing through the news logs that we completed in class, and WDRB's numbers stood out to me. In the bottom section of categorization, they consistently had a very low number of of stories categorized under the "politics, government" section. This violates the "watchdog" element of journalism. They're not keeping a close enough watch on people in Washington, people with power. I would have, if nothing else, expected to see more of Donald trump in the news, but there aren't many stories. With the presidential race and all of the debates between the republicans, they should have plenty of things under that category to report on. I'm listening to a republican debate as I write this, and yet there is so little information provided by WDRB about what's going on right now in terms of politics.
          Along with having a shockingly low number of government and politics based stories, WDRB consistently releases many stories under the "social issues, human interest, education" category. This violates the "inclusive" element of journalism. The inclusive element of journalism states, among other things, that the news should be kept comprehensive and proportional. The ratio of human interest stories to politics stories is entirely disproportional, and the arguably more important category is getting the shorter end of the stick. With the presidential race going on and elections quickly approaching, it is important to know what candidates have been doing and saying, but there are far more stories based around social issues.

Response to Mattie's Blog "datsomattie"

          Mattie wrote a media critique on her blog datsomattie. This post stuck out to me in particular because she said some things that I found to be very relatable. Along with telling about the disproportional amount of crime stories, she mentioned that if she wasn't in a journalism class, she likely would have considered it all to be news. Before taking a journalism class, I would have, to an extent, assumed that if something was in the news, it must be newsworthy. Her post made me realize that this class has given me the important resources to differentiate between things that are important, and things that are simply interesting. 

          The post went on to criticize the news outlet for releasing continuations to the already unimportant story. I agree that this is something outrageous that is quite often seen. I've definitely seen examples of a news outlet posting multiple follow ups on things that never mattered in the first place. Any companies or journalists guilty of this should try to stop and report on things that actually matter such as the presidential race that we have seen so little of. 

Response to Eli's Blog

          I thought that Eli wrote an excellent media critique that you can read yourself by clicking here. The critique opened with an interesting example that everyone would agree is not newsworthy. The story mentioned in the critique was laughable, and i think that nearly everyone would agree with her points about why it wasn't newsorthy. Eli explained why this story violated the yardsticks and elements of journalism, but she also went into depth about other times that the same news outlet had failed to produce good journalism. She talked about past patterns and she gave examples. Her reasoning was well explained. One thing that I found particularly interesting was the fact that after she had critiqued the media, she gave suggestions for how they could fix their weaknesses. For example, she suggested that the journalist review the article several times and that the specific, unnewsworthy, story be removed entirely from the front page to make from for more important information. This is something that I think I will try to incorporate more into my own entries.

Kim Davis Embarrassing Kentucky: Joey Schuster

          Joey Schuster raised what is, in my opinion, a very good point on his blog, The Schuster Post. He was responding to the subject of Kim Davis which has appeared on our current events quizzes. He made the point that she is embarrassing the citizens of Kentucky and harming the entire state's reputation, and I couldn't agree more. Kim Davis has created a nationally-known situation that reflects badly on our already negatively-stereotyped state. Whether Kim Davis has thought about the thoughts and feelings of the people she's turned away is debatable, but Joey's point that she is not thinking about how her actions are affecting the nation's view of Kentucky as a whole is entirely valid.

Conglomerations: Maggie Mitchel

          On the blog Moderately Maggie, Maggie Mitchel wrote an entry about today's conglomerations that raised some interesting points. While I will say that conglomerations do serve some important purposes, I agree with Maggie on the point that they have mostly negative impacts on consumers and mostly positive impacts on the companies themselves. She brought up some important issues that I hadn't thought of before such as the decrease in jobs and how it effects people and communities. Her entry made clear points and was easy to follow.

Response 4: Books

          As a person who loves to read, the lecture on books really made me apreciate how simple it is to get my hands on the latest bestseller. I read books in paper form as well as electronically, and neither would be possible without Gutenberg's printing press. Not only did it make real books cheaper and more accessible, it led to the creation of the books that led to the creation of the electronics like eReaders. I cannot imagine living in a world where I didn't have constant access to my favorite novels, and before we disscussed it in class, I had never given much thought to the fact that it hadn't always been that way. Before the printing press, most people couldn't read their own language, much less own expensive, hand-copied books.

          While it's probably occurred to me in the past to be grateful for my access to books, it has definitely never occurred to me to be grateful for my own literacy. Literacy and freedom to read and write what we want are things that didn't come about until after the invention of Gutenberg's printing press, and they are almost always taken for granted. Books are a very basic and simple form of entertainment and communication, but they are a luxury.

Response 3: Binary Models

          Something about the binary models lecture that interested me was how closely all the models (with the exception of hot and cold) related to each other, and to the seven yardsticks and ten elements of journalism. The discussion drew a line back to the subject of making the interesting important versus making the important interesting, especially with the model of elitist versus populist. Elitists are on the side of making the important interesting while populists are willing to make the interesting important as long as they can keep their audience entertained.
          There was also a question raised during the lesson that I've since thought a little bit about. Fox News is an organization that is largely republican, so the question was this: If republicans became nationally unpopular, would Fox News continue to side with them, or would they start to drift towards the more popular choice? If they did the former, they could be considered elitists, whereas if they did the later, they would be considered populists. It was interesting because they would probably receive much scrutiny for switching sides, but they've also portrayed populist qualities in the past such as publishing stories that are unimportant but interesting. However, this does not apply only to Fox. Many of today's media organizations are populists and have bias towards one side over the other, so it's interesting to think about how these populist organizations would handle it if the things that they were so used to saying suddenly became unpopular.

News Media Critique

          On September 13th, an article titled, "New York Woman Arrested After Pit Bulls Maul Man" was published on CNN's website. The article gave a lengthy and overly detailed description of an incident in which a man was attacked in the street by two pit bulls. While this is an unfortunate incident, it is not a newsworthy one. Something is newsworthy when it affects a large amount of people for a large amount of time. This incident fails to fit this criteria due to the fact that the only people affected are the victim and his family. The article uses dramatic language to blow the whole situation out of proportion, making it seem far more important than it truly is. One example of this is the use of the term "Good Samaritan" in various locations throughout the article to describe onlookers who threw things and sprayed water at the dogs.

          Another indication that this story has been overly dramaticised is the amount of repetition. It repeats the same facts multiple times to prolong the story. The article is a common example of journalists making the interesting important instead of making the important interesting. 

          

          The full article by Ray Sanchez and Lorenzo Ferrigno can be found here.

Response 2: Newspapers

          The lesson about the first newspapers surprised me. For one, I was surprised by how old newspapers are. I would have expected them to be a much more recent invention. However, the thing that I found to be the most surprising had nothing to do with the dates or locations, but rather with its effects. I'm speaking particularly about the precedent set by John Peter Zenger. He used the newspapers to help further the idea of freedom of press. The trial over his articles eventually led to the decision that one should not be punished for writing the truth. (Truth is the ultimate defense against libel.) 

          The thing that interested me about this, is the fact that this is not true internationally. It was explained that in other countries, you could be jailed for criticizing authority. It made me appreciate my freedom of speech and freedom in general much more. It also gave me a look at the importance of newspapers that was easier to understand. Newspapers had always just seemed like the thing my grandpa read every morning while he drank his coffee on the front porch and not much more, but they now seem to hold more worth because the earliest newspspers helped Americans establish their freedom in ways that some other countries have still been unable to do.

Response 1: The Seven Yardsticks of Journalism

          Some of the very first things we talked about in class were the ten elements and seven yardsticks of journalism. I enjoyed this lecture in particular, because it provided me with a sense of relief. I had seen the tabloid journalism portrayed in grocery store magazines and the uneven ratio of negative stories to positive stories on the news, and to some extent, I knew that this wasn't real news and that positive stories were important too. The lecture confirmed those ideas, and also showed that there are still people that understand what makes good journalism. Though the are many news organizations and journalists who have forgotten these ideals, there are also those who remember them and will work to stick to them.

          Secondly, the examples of good and bad journalism made me feel obligated to follow these guidelines if I ever end up with a career in the field. The real-life examples provide a sense of how a journalist's failure to follow the ten elements or seven yardsticks can affect a community. For example, failure to remain inclusive of all types of stories can give people the wrong image of a communtiy, which can have a negative effect. The lesson made me sure that if I ever become a journalist of any variety, I want to do my very best to remember these qualities that make good journalism.